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The Mysteries of Providence 
and of Grace 



AS ILLUSTRATED 



IN THE STORY OF LAZARUS 



BEING MEDITATIONS DELIVERED IN TRINITY CATHEDRAL, 
EASTON, MD., IN LENT, 1884 



HENRY C, LAY, D.D. LL.D 



BY 



LATE BISHOP OF EASTON 





NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & CO., PUBLISHERS 

14 and 16 Astor Place 
l88g 






Copyright, i88g, 
By JAMES POTT & CO. 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Astor Place, New York. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The frequent requests made that a volume 
of the sermons of the late Bishop of Easton 
be published, is a sufficient reason for the 
appearance of this little book. Those who 
read it may need no reason other than the 
book itself. It was his wish that nothing 
biographical should be published. Doubt- 
less, therefore, it is more in accordance with 
the views he expressed, as it will be also 
more helpful to others, that there should 
be published, not an account of his life, 
but rather the results of his mature thought, 
the fruit of a devout, poetic and sympathetic 
nature, which may, by the blessing of God, 
serve to elevate and refine many lives. 

Though intended for delivery, and not for 
publication, it has been thought best to leave 
these meditations substantially as they were 
originally written. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. The Mystery of Sickness and Grief 9 

" He whom Thoti lovest is sick." — St. John, xi. 3. 

II. The Mystery of the Divine Indifference 27 

" When He had heard therefore that he was sick, 
He abode two days still in the sa??ie place where 
He was." — St. John, xi. 6. 

III. The Mystery of Death 47 

"Plainly, Lazarus is dead" — St. John, xi. 14. 

IV. The Mystery of Resurrection 69 

"Lazarus, come forth" — St. John, xi. 43. 

V. The Mystery of Man's sharing God's Works 

of Mercy 89 

" Take ye away the stone " — St. John, xi. 39. 
** Loose hi?n, and let him go" — St. John, xi. 44. 



I. 

THE MYSTERY OF SICKNESS 
AND GRIEF. 



I. 



THE MYSTERY OF SICKNESS AND 
GRIEF. 

" Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovestissick" — St. John, xi. 3. 

In each several soul of man we may recog- 
nize a representative of the race, an epitome 
of the human family. To know one human 
life thoroughly, in its inner experiences as 
well as its external accidents, is largely to 
know the joy and sorrow, the conquest and 
defeat, the meanness and the greatness, of 
mankind at large. 

The same is true of the household. Each 
family-home is a microcosm, a world in minia- 
ture. The stage is narrow, the actors few ; but 
in the palace and in the hovel, the world-story 
is exhibited as in the great outside arena. In 
the contracted as in the larger sphere, the 
same drama proceeds ; with its shifting scenes 



IO THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

of joy and pain, doubt and trust, love and 
variance, ending in the invariable, tragic result 
of death. 

I propose for your Lenten meditations 
certain mysteries of our natural and of our 
spiritual life. One might ask, Why interweave 
them with the story of Lazarus ? Why not 
discuss them independently, and apart from 
any personal complication ? 

I answer, because such mode of treat- 
ment brings these mysteries within the grasp 
of our practical thought. In the recital of 
what once happened at a veritable home in 
Bethany, we guard against unreality and idle 
speculation. We have only to change the 
designation, to insert our own baptismal 
names, and the story, much of it, seems to 
have been written of ourselves. 

Yet, again, in our homes brothers and 
sisters live together as at Bethany, defended, 
instructed, comforted, by the presence of a 
Divine friend. Only our eyes are holden and 
we see Him not. But at Bethany He was 
manifest in deed and word, in the fulness of 
compassion, in the majesty of power. To see 



AND OF GRACE. II 

Him there may help us to discern Him at our 
own hearthstone. 

Some two miles from Jerusalem, on the 
farther slope of the Mount of Olives, lay the 
village of Bethany. In that village, besides 
the house of Simon the Leper, there was a 
home to which our Lord often resorted, its 
inmates being a brother and two sisters. The 
brother, a lovable person indeed, for his in- 
timacy with our Lord seems to have been 
exceeded by that of St. John alone. We think 
of him as grave, self-contained and reticent ; 
content, even when restored by miracle, to 
honor his Deliverer by the silence of his 
living presence. The sisters, very unlike, 
types severally of the active and the contem- 
plative in religion, yet of one mind in hon- 
oring Him who adorned their home with His 
presence. 

It is sufficient evidence of their worth, that 
" Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Laz- 
arus ; " Martha being mentioned first in order, 
perchance lest, in view of one deserved rebuke, 
we should depreciate her worth. 

Now, it has come to pass that trouble enters 



12 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

this favored home. Lazarus sickens, and in his 
sickness is nigh unto death. The Master was 
outside the limits of Judea, abiding beyond 
Jordan. In their extremity the sisters sent a 
message to Him. 

The sketch is intensely human. We know 
all about it. The access of disease ; the unre- 
sisted march of fever ; the darkened room ; 
Martha careless of her housekeeping, Mary 
emulating her sister's activity ; their tearful 
eyes weary with the long vigil, and both 
frightened to the very centre of their being at 
the thought that presently the family circle 
is to be rudely broken, and the two women to 
be left alone in the house from which the 
brightness has all gone away. 

We know all about it. We have watched 
and wrestled. We have looked abroad and 
invoked the presence of any who might help, 
or, if they could not help, sustain. 

We have here suggested the mystery of 
sickness and grief. Well does the brief mes- 
sage of the sisters express that mystery. 
" Lord, behold," they say. It is a word of em- 
phasis and wonder. " Lord, behold." Think 



AND OF GRACE. 1 3 

of it, mark it as a thing notable and unaccount- 
able. " Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest 
is sick." 

If it had been a man whom Jesus hated, — 
supposing it possible for Him to hate, — or 
one of whom He disapproved, with whom He 
was angry, there would be no room for mar- 
vel. We would say, The sickness is for re- 
buke ; it is penalty incurred by reason of 
transgression ; the suspense of a stewardship 
not faithfully discharged. 

But, " Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is 
sick." Here is the mystery. Why should 
those who love Jesus, and whom He loves in 
return, be sick and languishing, be wounded 
in the very purest of their affections, finding in 
that very sensibility which the love of Jesus 
has fostered the keenest aggravation of 
sorrow ? 

The instance is not isolated. It is com- 
monly observed that the loveliest are singled 
out for sacrifice, the keenest trials sent to 
such as most keenly feel them and least de- 
serve them. 

Can any light be thrown upon this mystery? 



14 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

It cannot be made all clear. The childlike 
saint desires not so much. He prefers to take 
somewhat on trust, and to tarry the Lord's 
leisure for the breaking of the mystic seals. 
Some token for good, however, we crave, here 
in the land of the living ; some response to the 
cry that will well up from our overburdened 
soul : " Show me wherefore Thou contendest 
with me." 

And so I reach my theme : What light does 
the story of Lazarus throw upon the mystery 
of sickness and its attendant griefs, and by 
implication on all the afflictions of God's saints ? 

I. IT LIGHTENS THE MYSTERY TO KNOW 
THAT THIS DISCIPLINE, HOWEVER PAIN- 
FUL, IS NOT FATAL. 

The sickness of Lazarus was what we call 
mortal. Yet our Lord's first comment on the 
news was, " This sickness is not unto death." 

With this word in mind, we are bold to say 
of every calamity sent to the friends of God, 
it may be very painful and hard to endure, 
seemingly it may be destructive of the life ; 
but, for all that, it is not unto death. 



AND OF GRACE. 1 5 

There is indeed a sorrow that worketh 
death. It is possible for one to be swallowed 
up of overmuch sorrow 7 . When calamities 
great and long-continued come to us, it is a 
natural apprehension that they will actually 
engulf us ; that in the shock peace, happiness, 
usefulness, will suffer utter wreck. 

Such apprehension is natural to those espe- 
cially who have lived out the best of their 
days, and are descending into the vale. The 
family circle is broken by death ; and they say, 
like Israel, " If I am bereaved of my children, 
I am bereaved. " Those gone, there is nothing 
left worth saving. 

Or else, finding one's self with the load of 
care and responsibility in no wise diminished, 
while the endurance and the activity are greatly 
lessened ; with others as dependent as ever 
upon us, while we are less and less equal to 
the task of guidance and protection, — prone are 
we to think that life will utterly break down, 
and life's work prove a failure. 

But mortal sufferings are not really death. 
Out of weakness groweth strength. In blind- 
ness and captivity, we may, like Samson, dis- 



l6 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

play a more magnificent championship than in 
the days of health and freedom. Winter and 
spring unite to tell us that seeming death is 
the assurance of a truer life, and the prelude 
to it. He who numbers the very hairs of our 
heads asks us, Who is he that will harm you if 
ye be followers of that which is good ? He 
whom Jesus loves may be sick; but unto death, 
never ! 

Where the love of Jesus rests, Death, not 
what men call death, but Death, the true 
Destroyer, may not enter. It is when poverty 
and persecution have most sorely beset them, 
when pain abounded and the grave was yawn- 
ing for them, that those whom Jesus loved 
have been most jubilant. In the assurance of 
love, Death is not Death. All the day are 
we killed, but the evening still finds us con- 
querors. " Neither death nor life, nor angels 
nor principalities nor powers, nor things pres- 
ent nor things to come, nor height nor depth 
nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord." 

I trust that this is not the language of mere 



AND OF GRACE. 1 7 

paradox and sentimentality. I would not en- 
courage you to conjure up imaginary griefs, or 
to persuade yourselves that you are martyrs. 

In all truth and soberness, not a few of us, 
who out of love to Jesus are trying in some 
poor way to keep Lent, do know that we have 
a real trouble ; a something, either about our- 
selves or others, which may be called a soul- 
sickness. It is a trouble, the mystery of which 
we may not altogether solve. Let us, in the 
light of this narration, write one thing down 
as absolutely secure. It is not unto death. 
Those whom Jesus loves, He doth discipline, 
but not destroy. " I shall not die, but live, 
and declare the works of the Lord." " The 
Lord hath chastened and corrected me, but He 
hath not given me over unto death." 

2. THE MYSTERY OF SICKNESS, PAIN AND 
GRIEF IS STILL FURTHER LIGHTENED, 
THAT THEY ARE FOR THE GLORY OF 
GOD. 

" This sickness is not unto death, but for the 
glory of God, and that the Son of God may be 
glorified thereby." 

2 



1 8 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

We know full well how love strengthens en- 
durance. If an affectionate child must endure 
a painful operation, how powerful is the argu- 
ment of the mother's whisper, "Try to bear it 
for my sake." But loyalty is a mightier princi- 
ple than love itself. The loyalty of wife to hus- 
band, of child to parents, of soldier to his com- 
mander, of patriot to his country's cause, who 
knows not its power to make men indifferent 
to hardships, losses and pains ? 

The glory of God is involved in our dis- 
cipline, and our behavior under it. God is 
glorified in His saints ; in their patience and 
their perseverance. God is glorified when we 
so endure trouble, as to vindicate His word 
that all things work together for the good of 
such as love Him. 

In the beginning of the religious life, there 
is indeed an attraction of love, but largely 
commingled with considerations of personal 
safety, happiness and reward. But in the 
maturer saint, while these influences still 
remain, loyalty to the Master becomes the 
ruling passion of the soul. 

The loyalty of the Son to the Father be- 



AND OF GRACE. 19 

comes the pattern of our loyalty to the Son. 
Wonderfully clear and distinct is that pattern. 
" The hour is come/' said Jesus. There were 
not hid from Him the dread and darkness of 
that hour. He did not close His eyes to its 
horrors. " Now is my soul troubled, and what 
shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? 
. . . Father, glorify Thy name." 

See how loyalty to the Father drove back each 
struggling cry for exemption. See how zeal for 
the Father's glory ingulfed all other thoughts. 
Follow out the story, and note how, in extrem- 
est pains, recollection w r as never off its guard ; 
but each act, each word, was scrupulously 
ordered to this supreme end, the glory of God. 

We reach here a high thought, — the real 
office of the Church, and of each Church-child 
as well ; the mystery which from the begin- 
ning hath been hid in God, who created all 
things by Jesus Christ. 

The intent of all divine regimen and institu- 
tion here on earth is, " That unto the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places might 
be known by the Church the manifold wisdom 
of God." 



20 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

Yes, the mighty ones around the glory- 
throne, returned from searching a universe for 
illustrations of His greatness, tell out that story 
before the throne, and cry one to another: 
" Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts ; the 
whole earth is full of His glory." 

And mingled with their songs, comes up 
from earth the Church's incense, publishing to 
the principalities and powers themselves the 
manifold wisdom of God. Think not that the 
golden vials are found in the consecrated 
Church alone. From many a hovel of poverty 
endured, from many a bed of anguish, from 
many a breast most heavily laden, there 
comes, struggling through the sobs of natural 
distress, the essential chant of the Church 
above and below: "Glory be to the Father, 
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." 

But there is another and a very awful 
thought touching the connection of all life's 
incidents with the infinite scheme, — the room 
for each Christian sigh in the eternal music of 
the spheres. 

In the sight of God, things are not great 
and small as they seem to us, but the minor 



AND OF GRACE. 21 

incidents of life are part and parcel of the 
infinite plan. 

Are you incredulous of this? Does it seem 
unreasonable that the details in the life of one 
so insignificant can have any bearing on the 
coming of the Christ and the regeneration of 
the universe? 

Assuredly Martha and Mary had equal 
cause thus to reason. Bethany was but a mean 
village, and they were not the sort of folk to 
influence the world's destiny. How could it 
seriously affect any great interest, whether 
Lazarus were in health or in sickness, whether 
they wept or laughed ? 

Not only have we our Lord's word that 
these domestic incidents were for the glory of 
God, but the subsequent history fully explains 
the connection. The story of Lazarus is in 
St. John's narrative part of the story of the 
Cross. The sickness of Lazarus brought about 
our Lord's return from Jordan to Judea where 
the Jews of late sought to stone him. The 
raising of Lazarus was that which utterly in- 
furiated the priests, and caused them to con- 
vene that council at which it was finally de- 



22 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

termined that this man must die. " From that 
day forth they took counsel together for to 
put Him to death." 

We touch here the borders of another mys- 
tery, specially to be considered hereafter, — 
man helping or hindering God. 

But we are safe when we deal with facts. 
Here is proof unimpeachable that the glorious 
things of the Cross were bound up in the hum- 
ble fortunes of a family at Bethany. The infer- 
ence is not strained ; besides inference, it has 
no small attestation in the Bible, that the vicissi- 
tudes in the life of those whom Jesus loves are 
also incidents in the all-comprehensive march 
of Providence and of Redemption. 

We often feel more spiritual distress than 
we exhibit to others. When we go abroad, it 
is an instinct to anoint the head and wash the 
face. Only weak-minded people display their 
sackcloth and ashes. But in our privacy, how 
often is* Satan near tempting us to discontent 
and sadness. He says, " You have opened 
your heart to Jesus, and given Him the place 
of honor there. You have cumbered yourself 
with His service, or sat patient at His feet. 



AND OF GRACE. 23 

You say He loves you. Expound the mystery 
of a love which provides no exemption from 
the ills of life, for the objects of love. Explain 
why He hath withholden prosperity, why He 
hath taken away the treasures of the house, 
why He hath added heavy burdens and griev- 
ous to be borne." 

O brother, thou need'st not flee in such an 
hour, nor stop thine ears to the sneering voice. 
Listen to all he may say. The Bible is near 
thee, thine unfailing armory ; and this eleventh 
chapter of S. John is in itself shield and 
sword. 

Say boldly: I am not careful to answer thee. 
I seek not in this land of shadows to discern 
the mystery of good and evil. But thus much 
I know, and it is enough for me to know. 
These my sorrows are not unto death, but unto 
life eternal. 

These my sorrows are not meaningless nor 
purposeless. They are, as surely as the tears 
of Martha and of Mary, for the glory of God, 
and that the Son of God may be glorified 
thereby. 

The heavens are lit up with the brightness 



24 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE. 

of many stars. And in the celestial firmament 
declaring the glory of God there is a high place 
for burning and shining lights ; but need also 
of the twinkling stars, the humbler saints, who 
loved at least a little, and who strove to endure, 
in faith and with thanksgiving, the discipline 
of pain. 



II. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE 
INDIFFERENCE. 



II. 



THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE 
INDIFFERENCE. 

" When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode 
two days still in the same place where He was." — St. John, 
xi. 6. 

WHEN the message came, " He whom Thou 
lovest is sick," our Lord did seemingly make 
light of it. " This sickness is not unto death," 
He said ; and He moved not from His place. 

And yet Lazarus was dying, and the sisters 
were crushed under the calamity. 

And yet again, " Jesus wept " presently a«t 
the thought of their sorrows ; and said the 
Jews, " Behold how He loved him." 

My theme is, The Mystery of the Divine 
Indifference. The illustration is of the Christ, 
really sympathetic, loving, weeping ; yet for 
the time irresponsive, lingering by the way, 
permitting the calamity which by a word might 
be averted. 



28 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

It was this indifference which added more bit- 
terness to the bereavement, bitter as it was with- 
out it. It was this indifference which led each 
sister, separate and apart, to cry, " Lord, if Thou 
hadst been here, my brother had not died." 

Yes, Lazarus might have been spared ; only 
Jesus was not interested enough about the 
matter to hasten to him, and to give timely 
relief. Two long, weary days of hope deferred 
and at last frustrated ; and Jesus the while 
resting inactively by the bank of Jordan. 

Good women as these were, it seems that 
the sisters were tempted to think hardly of 
the Divine Friend. There is a touch of com- 
plaint and remonstrance in their lamentation. 

Our Lenten subjects are sometimes an- 
nounced in the local journals, and attract, at 
least from the many, a casual attention. " What 
has the preacher to talk about this Lent? 
i The Mystery of Pain and Grief,' " says one to 
himself : " that is a theme of interest to all. 
But ' The Mystery of the Divine Indifference ' 
concerns me not : it is an unreality. The blow 
that wounds me, the calamity which crushes 
me, these are real things. These are substan- 



AND OF GRACE. 29 

tial facts. But whether God careth or careth 
not, neither diminishes my pain nor adds to it." 

My duties carry me at times into homes, 
pleasant and hospitable, where evidences of 
domestic affection are not lacking. And I 
marvel to converse with one and another, intel- 
ligent, honest, kind, to whose peace and com- 
fort God is in no wise a necessity. So the 
machine grinds, they care not for its author. 
The presence of Jesus at the marriage would 
add nothing to the festive joy. His absence 
at the funeral would import no additional ele- 
ment of sorrow. Utterly indifferent to God, 
it troubles them not if God seem indifferent 
to them. 

Is our theme, then, unreal or unpractical ? 
Does it touch our interior consciousness? Is 
there such a mystery and a huge grief that 
grow out of it ? 

If we turn to the Book of Psalms, the hand- 
book of religious experiences, the poetic ex- 
pression of the spiritual joys and sorrows com- 
mon to the race, it abounds in allusions of this 
sort. " Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord ? 
Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble ? " 



30 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

" How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? for- 
ever? how long wilt Thou hide Thy face from 
me?" are specimens of the complaints con- 
tinually recurring. The taunt of the Enemy 
hardest to endure is that which seems to have 
so much truth in it, " Where is now thy God ? " 
The seeming indifference of God to the deserts 
of good men and bad, and to the heavier 
sorrows of the good, is the specific theme of 
the Seventy-third Psalm. 

Or, if we turn to the Lamentations of Jere- 
miah, the Lenten hand-book of the sorrowful 
ones, how elaborately is this mystery of Divine 
Indifference there set out ! The complaint is 
not merely of wormwood, gall and gravel- 
stones, of broken bones and crooked paths and 
the environment of derision. The climax of it 
all is, " Also when I cry and shout, He shutteth 
out my prayer." 

Among the most familiar illustrations of 
spiritual destitution is that of a parched and 
thirsty land, appealing, apparently in vain, to 
a brazen, unpitying sky. 

If there be some to whom the sympathy of 
God is a superfluity, there are those also to 



AND OF GRACE. 3 1 

whom it is a necessity. In spite of all our 
deficiencies, we may claim thus much for our- 
selves. We have never yet been able in our 
troubles to dispense with the love of God. We 
have never been so down-hearted as when we 
have entertained the suspicion that God does 
not care. Even when we have not surrendered 
our faith in His invisible presence, the sorest 
of life's disciplines is the absence of its manifes- 
tation. The bitterest cry that has ever been 
wrung from suffering humanity is heard in the 
voice of its representative, " My God, my God, 
why hast Thou forsaken me? " 

I am not propounding something morbid, 
imaginative, unreal. I am dealing with a trial 
and a temptation familiar to the saints of God ; 
a trial incident to the spiritual strivings of the 
men and women for whom I write. Observe 
that this abiding two days still beyond Jordan 
stands not alone in our Lord's history. The 
Syrophenician woman cried long and piteously 
before her words were heeded at all, and even 
then our Joseph spake roughly to her. Many 
a request for healing found seeming reluctance, 
and many a cure was deferred for a season. 



32 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

In the desperate hour when the bark of the 
disciples could not outride the storm, and our 
Lord went to their relief, He made as though 
He would pass by them upon some other 
errand. How did they uplift their voices and 
battle with the howling of the storm, before 
He appeared to notice their distress or directed 
His steps towards them ! 

To the parallels within our own experience, 
to instances like these, I shall have occasion 
presently to refer. But let us first of all discern 
so much as may be discerned of the reasons 
which induced our Lord, when He knew that 
Lazarus was sick, to abide still two days in the 
place where He was. For the story of human 
life is like this eleventh chapter of St. John. 
We must read it all through before we can 
make anything of its earlier verses. 

I. OUR lord's seeming indifference to 

THE SORROWS OF THESE HOLY WOMEN 
SERVED TO INTENSIFY THEIR SENSE OF 
NEED AND THEIR DEPENDENCE UPON HIM. 

In the family government, the purest type 
on earth of the Divine government, we cannot 



AND OF GRACE. 33 

be too solicitous for the happiness of our chil- 
dren ; but we find it best not to manifest all of 
that solicitude. We cannot be too ready to 
forgive, too ready to wipe away the tears ; but 
it is best to defer the reconciliation a little 
while, and not too hastily to dry up the tears. 

For children are prone to accept the parental 
love and protection as a matter of right and a 
thing of course, to be demanded rather than 
requested, to be accepted and presently for- 
gotten. Moreover, the child-nature is heedless 
and superficial. Its lessons of pain, of self- 
reproach, of relief and gratitude, are easily 
learned and as easily forgotten. 

O ye who murmur at the restraint of the 
Divine love, think for a moment how often you 
seemed indifferent to that longing in your 
child's heart which you were fully determined 
to gratify ! How often have you withheld 
forgiveness, and preserved the reproachful 
countenance, when the soul was most full of 
tenderness, and the arms of the heart were 
already outspread to embrace the infant sin- 
ner ! The demands we make upon the faith 
and endurance of our offspring — how large they 
3 



34 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

are! In some of life's exigencies, they are 
simply enormous ; as when we bid him consent 
to be reduced to insensibility, while the surgeon 
shall lacerate his body. How strange that we 
should fret and doubt when the Heavenly 
Father makes the like demand on us ! 

If when Lazarus first sickened the Lord had 
promptly attended and immediately relieved, 
many bitter pains would have been spared 
those loving hearts. But we know enough of 
human nature to understand that the pro- 
longed absence intensified the longing for the 
actual presence. I need only suggest the 
thought, — each one can readily follow it out, 
— how in that interval the sisters would be glad 
to gather anew the recollections of His gracious- 
ness and benignity ; how they would bethink 
themselves whether they had worthily enter- 
tained so great a guest ; how they would in- 
creasingly let go their dependence on earthly 
helps and healers, and the whole heart go out 
in desperate longing for the one only Friend 
adequate to their need. 

So, then, some light is thrown upon the mys- 
tery of the Divine indifference, when we con- 



AND OF GRACE. 35 

sider that it is a discipline of love — love reticent 
and passive for a season, that the responsive 
love it seeks to educate many learn deeper les- 
sons of dependence, and reach out more long- 
ingly after its supreme comforter. 

There is another thought in much the same 
direction. 

2. THE SEEMING INDIFFERENCE STRENGTH- 
ENED THEIR FAITH. 

For when Jesus comes at last to Bethany, do 
their words imply that Faith had become de- 
bilitated by His absence, or are the utterances 
of Faith equivocal and uncertain ? Far from 
it. Jesus propounds to Martha, in her utmost 
desolation, that sublimest of His self-assertions, 
" I am the Resurrection and the Life." 

" Believest thou this?" He says. And the 
sorrow-stricken woman looks up through her 
tears, looks on him the Jewish carpenter, the 
travel-worn, the lingerer by the way. " She 
saith unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that 
Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which 
should come into the world." 

Yes, so it is. Faith is a hardy plant. In 



36 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

the fat soil of prosperity, its growth is often 
languid, or it is choked with other things. But 
where it is planted in some crevice of the naked 
rock, where earth favors it not, and despairing of 
earthly aids it makes its helpless appeal to the 
winds of God to bring it nourishment, to the 
sunshine of God to cheer it, to the dews of God 
to refresh it, it attains its loveliest proportions. 

So it is that God seems to strengthen faith, 
less by what He gives than by what He takes 
away. The experience of life furnishes many 
illustrations of the fact. I am not careful 
to explain the apparent paradox. So it is : 
men have walked with God in pleasant paths, 
with many tokens of a favoring presence, while 
yet they were dull of heart and slow to believe. 
But presently in the wilderness of distress, in 
the storm of temptation, the darkness of the 
eclipse of mercy, Faith has found a new life, 
has discovered that reserve of love which only 
can account for its momentary inertness ; and 
in that dark hour has witnessed a better con- 
fession than in all the sunshine of the life 
before. 

Light is still further thrown upon the mys- 



AND OF GRACE. 37 

tery of the Divine indifference, when we re- 
member 

3. THAT THE REFUSAL PREMATURELY TO 
INTERVENE MADE ROOM FOR A LARGER 
BLESSING. 

Yes, in denying to the sisters the blessing 
which they craved, our Lord intended for them 
a blessing which should make their cup over- 
flow. In declining the accustomed miracle of 
healing, He prepared the way for the miracle 
of Resurrection, the most majestic and astound- 
ing of all the miracles, excepting that only of 
the Easter-day. 

It would have been cause for life-long thank- 
fulness, had He responded quickly to their 
summons, and hastened to lay the hand of 
healing on the fevered brow, and with a word 
only caused the king of terrors to relax his 
hold upon his captive. He refused then} that 
boon ; but in refusing it He gave them another, 
far beyond anything they had dared to ask or 
even think. 

The home at Bethany becomes a station in 
the via dolorosa — the way of the cross. The 



38 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

names of those neglected ones become inex- 
tricably interwoven in the story of redemption 
completed ; and in the roll-call of the saints 
these obscure mourners find renown and per- 
petual memorial, as the " women who received 
their dead raised to life again." 

I should weary you if I should undertake to 
remind you out of the Book of God, or out of 
the book of your own experience, of the debt 
of thankfulness we owe to Almighty God for 
the mercies He has refused, and for the larger 
mercies which came to us by reason of such 
refusal. The light and momentary affliction, 
of sorrows apparently disregarded, is God's 
own way of working out for us a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 

Standing, then, at the beginning of the chap- 
ter, our Lord's lingering at Jordan might seem 
inexplicable. But looking backward from the 
close, three things are apparent : 

(i) The Lord's delay intensified in his friends 
the sense of their need of Him. 

(2) It actually invigorated their faith in Him. 

(3) // prepared the way for tmimagined 
blessing. 



AND OF GRACE. 39 

Reflections such as these find ready applica- 
tion to two classes of persons, — the disap- 
pointed seekers after God, and the discour- 
aged aspirants after a truer life in God ; cases 
which have so many features in common that 
we need not hesitate to consider them together. 

It happens, then, that a careless man of the 
world is disturbed in his carelessness. Some 
outcry of reproachful conscience, some heart- 
crushing sorrow, some keen arrow from the 
quiver of God's Word, finds the weak place in 
the armor of his indifference ; and so the fast- 
closed door of his heart stands a little way 
ajar, and angel-whispers, heretofore unheard, 
find their way into the inner chamber of his 
consciousness. 

And soon the good news is carried up to a 
sympathizing Heaven, " Behold, he prayeth." 
God's eye beholds him in his closet, with the 
long-neglected Word of Life open before him ; 
beholds him on his knees, essaying some poor 
beginnings of prayer. Some tokens there are 
of shame for the perverted life, and yearnings 
after a better. Some voice there is of sins 
renounced, and of good resolutions for the 



40 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

guidance of the future. His feet are turned 
towards the House of God, his attention is 
given to the word spoken ; perhaps he so far 
overcomes the fear of man, as, meekly kneeling 
on his knees, to make his own confession of 
the lost sheep, the undone sinner, the dust and 
ashes and vile earth. 

And presently disappointment grows up. I 
am none the better, he says, for these en- 
deavors, and farther than ever from my peace. 
No father, says he, has risen from his place to 
welcome the prodigal's return. I see at the 
window no kind eyes regarding me as I stand 
out in the cold, but only the unsympathetic 
countenance of a virtuous elder brother, who 
has no confidence in the sincerity of the yearn- 
ing for Father, Home and Brotherhood, which 
have brought me back. I have exposed my 
heart to the plough-share of the law, and it 
remains harder than the nether millstone. I 
have cried out in my extremity for love, pity 
and forgiveness, and they stand staring and 
looking at me. I have renounced, and found 
no strength to observe the renunciation. I 
have vowed and promised, only to redouble 



AND OF GRACE. 41 

my shame and grief by the spectacle of vio- 
lated pledges. I re-enact, in my own experi- 
ence, the story of the traveller, bleeding, half- 
dead, on the way ; while not only Priest and 
Levite, but even the Good Samaritan, pass by 
on the other side, and leave me unpitied and 
untended. It is under disappointment like 
this, that one and another have begun the race 
ardently, and soon abandoned it despairingly. 

Akin to this experience is that of the dis- 
couraged child of God. He sets apart a season 
to seek a more intimate self-knowledge, to 
attain greater proficiency in the religious life, 
to seek more intimate communion with the 
loving and the living Lord. 

Alas ! he says, never has it been more diffi- 
cult for me to fasten my attention, and to 
order my life by rule and method. Never 
have the cares of life been more vexatious, and 
the good seed more choked in its growth, than 
now ; seldom have I had less comfort in my 
devotions than now. My good intents seem 
to be 'foiled; discretion fails; zeal intermits; 
privileges fail to refresh ; and even my favorite 
hymns give not out their music. 



42 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

And both unite to ask, the disappointed 
seeker after God, and the discouraged saint 
of God, If it be so, as you have often told us 
in comfortable words, why am I thus ? Why 
this mystery of the Divine Indifference, of 
Jesus lingering so far away, when I so much 
need Him ; when I have sent Him at least the 
halting messenger of my prayers, to tell Him 
that I am worn and weary, disconsolate, suffer- 
ing, sick, dying, threatened with the loss of all 
worth having, unless He come speedily to my 
relief. 

Let us assure ourselves that the delays of 
grace proceed not from indifference to our 
need. 

It is easy to send a messenger in our extrem- 
ity, and ask relief in our pain. But it is not so 
easy to realize how great a thing it is to restore 
the sick soul to health, or at how awful a sac- 
rifice alone is it possible even for the Son of 
God to raise a dead soul to life again. If 
Christ consents to raise Lazarus at Bethany, 
He consents in the same moment to surrender, 
as a ransom, His own life on Calvary. 

To deepen and intensify your sense of help- 



AND OF GRACE. 43 

lessness and utter dependence on Him ; to in- 
crease your faith in Him, the confidence that 
grows up out of self-despair ; to come to you, 
when the discipline of delay has accomplished 
its work, with a fulness of blessing which there 
shall not be room enough to receive, — such are 
the purposes of Him w T hom you love and by 
whom you are beloved. 

Or, in brief, we have to learn the meaning of 
that word DUTY. 

Duty keeps us true to religious employments, 
even when we find no present satisfaction in 
them. Duty keeps us fighting on, even when 
the battle seems to go against us. Duty makes 
us cling to God, even when He seems to cast 
us out. 

And what is Duty, save Faith evidenced in 
action ? when to all seeming discouragements 
and impossibilities of safety, we oppose that 
high conviction, the Son of God loved me and 
loves me still : He gave Himself for me, and 
He will never forsake me. 

Learn, then, the excellence of patient waiting 
upon God. In the present our eyes fail, per- 
chance, in waiting for His salvation. But, if 



44 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE. 

Faith fail not as well, it may even in time be 
ours to sing : " I waited patiently for the Lord, 
and he inclined unto me, and heard my call- 
ing." 

True, in very love, He lingered a little while. 
But, when He came, it was to comfort all my 
sorrows, to banish all my tears, to restore all 
my dead things to life again, to inscribe my 
unworthy name in the volume of love and of 
renown. 



III. 

THE MYSTERY OF DEATH. 



III. 

THE MYSTERY OF DEATH. 

" Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." 
— St. John, xi. 14. 

In our communings one with another, how- 
beit we may use syllables and words in common, 
we may none the less be speaking in languages 
so diverse, that the speech of one is unintel- 
ligible to the other. 

I might give a thousand illustrations. Take 
the common word Frolic. In one man's mouth 
it means the innocent, playful exuberance of 
animal life and spirits : in the mouth of another 
it means the wild orgy, the shameful excess. 
A guileless child and a vicious man utter the 
same word ; but they mean not the same thing, 
and neither can understand the language of 
the other. 

Now when the messenger came from Bethany, 
our Lord began by speaking to the disciples in 



48 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

the celestial tongue. " This sickness is not 
unto death," He said ; and again after two 
days : " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I 
go, that I may awake him out of sleep." 

Now Jesus was indeed speaking of natural 
death ; but He used the celestial language, 
which makes of death a pleasant slumber, the 
anticipation of a glad awakening. 

The disciples were not as yet proficients in 
such high discourse. " Lord," said they, " if he 
sleep, he shall do well." " They thought that 
he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep." Our 
Lord then condescends to their infirmity, 
adopts their own prosaic speech. " Then said 
Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." 

I have undertaken to speak to you of The 
Mystery of Death. In what language shall 
we discourse? If we use the earthly tongue, 
then plainly Lazarus is dead, and death is 
death. But if we discourse in the heavenly 
language, then is Lazarus not altogether dead: 
he sleepeth in seeming death, and is presently 
to be awakened. 

Let us approach this mystery from either 
side. Let us survey it with the eye of sense 



AND OF GRACE. 49 

and with the eye of faith. Let us follow the 
mere human analysis and the divine explana- 
tion of what men call Death. 

I. WHAT CAN OUR UNAIDED POWERS MAKE 
OF THE MYSTERY OF DEATH? 

There are those who tell us that all we see 
and know is matter and force. Thought is a 
secretion of the brain ; a mode of its activity; 
a change of its molecules ; a force generated in 
the nerve-centres and dismissed along nerve- 
fibres, much as the telegraph battery, with a 
few chemicals, engenders and transmits a pulse 
of energy along conducting wires. Only this 
human activity, more unfortunate than the 
mechanical invention, is automatic and has no 
intelligent governor. There is in the universe 
no angel, no spirit, no God — nothing but what 
we can see and handle ; rock, wood, flesh, in 
varied forms and combinations. There is 
nothing else that is real. Soul, if by soul one 
means aught else than the mere ebbing and 
flowing of material forces, there is none. The 
word mind, or the word soul, are convenient 
expressions in the classification of certain 



50 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

physical agitations ; but they have no mean- 
ing, no existence, apart from the bodily organ- 
ism. The soul is but a melody of continuous 
vibrations : when the instrument is still, the 
song is ended. 

If it be superfluous to allude to these form- 
ulated disbeliefs of things spiritual, I may 
remind you, that, for all practical purposes, 
they differ very little from the mere world- 
liness which regards the earthly life of man in 
and for itself alone. Those who give religion 
the go-by, who regard life and death purely in 
themselves, are in fact as much materialists as 
those who reason about it. Now, to all such 
this mystery of death is the most inscrutable 
of all mysteries. We cannot get away from it, 
for it confronts us at every turn. We cannot 
help thinking about it ; for if the priest is silent, 
the physician warns : if we avoid the Church, 
we are compelled to visit the graveyard. 

(a) Look at death in its physical aspect. 
The human body is the most perfect thing in 
all the world, — so strong, so nimble, so delicate 
in its sensations, so admirably knit together. 
In its best illustrations it has a grace and 



AND OF GRACE. 5 I 

beauty which lie at the foundation of all art. 
The world never wearies of looking on its great 
ideals. 

And who may describe the grandeur and the 
loveliness of what we call expression ? — the 
sweet innocence of the baby-face, and later on 
the intelligence that flashes in the eye, or the 
love that softens its glance. And then Death 
intervenes. I will not describe his work. One 
can scarce bear to think of it. It is enough to 
say of it, that when he has touched the noblest 
and fairest of our race, so changed are they, 
that we must hasten to bury our dead out of 
our sight. A generation passes, and we have 
occasion to seek them again. Alas ! there is 
nothing left but some fragments of bone or a 
tuft of hair. A mystery is here. Why should 
a thing so curiously fashioned be so utterly 
wasted? Why should a thing so fair become 
so foul. 

No artist chisels out even the cold marble 
image, intending when it is perfected to shat- 
ter it to pieces with one blow of his hammer. 
Was this warm, breathing image made only to 
be marred ? Men do not build fair houses 



52 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

only to apply the torch to them, nor do they 
bring into their homes lovely things and expel 
them presently ; at one moment caressing and 
admiring them, and at another burying them 
deep with faces averted from them. 

Shall one tell us to our comfort, that the 
components of this body do not perish, but 
after the dissolution we are re-combined in 
other forms, some being wafted up into the 
cloud, and others smiling once more upon 
earth in blossoms and flowers? There is no 
comfort, no explanation here. It helps not, 
if the marble image only of my friend be 
crushed, to tell me that it is all there, only in 
a thousand comminuted fragments. The frag- 
ments are not the image. That exists not in 
the fragments. It is as water poured upon 
the ground, which cannot be gathered up 
again. 

Such is the mystery of physical death as 
seen from the stand-point of time. A dark 
enigma, and yet a horrible reality ; a reckless 
waste, a wanton making only to unmake ; 
every way hateful to think about, horrible to 
look at. Explain this mystery, we demand of 



AND, OF GRACE. 53 

Nature. Frank, indeed, but cheerless and un- 
instructive, is the reply. She saith unto us 
plainly, Lazarus is dead. 

(b) Consider the mystery of the death of 
mind as well as body. For this man had in- 
tellect as well as body, and the glory of the 
body was in its obedient ministrations to the 
thoughts. 

This Lazarus had hands wherewith he build- 
ed houses and gathered the fruits of the earth. 
These went not away in his departure. He 
bequeathed them a legacy to his survivors. 
But that was not all of him. He had, so to 
speak, the hands of thought, busy in accumu- 
lating all manner of knowledge, busy in con- 
structing all manner of schemes, personal, 
domestic, social. 

But now all these thoughts have perished. 
The farm and the merchandise are transmit- 
ted to his children. But the experiences of 
life and the wisdom consequent thereon, the 
knowledge of many languages, the result of 
arduous studies, all the fair fabric of hope and 
aspiration, — all these are dissolved into thin 
air. The children assume his material wealth 



54 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

just as he left it ; but as for this more valuable 
store of wisdom, experience, learning, forecast, 
they have no inheritance in it, and must begin, 
as he began, at the very alphabet of life. 

Indeed, this reflection often swallows up all 
others, as we look upon the dead man. What 
insensibility is there ! Yesterday so busy, to- 
day so idle. Yesterday so thoughtful, to-day 
lying in w r orse than stupor. 

The transformation is as of some fair ship, 
speeding toward a chosen port, with all sail 
set, and all hands on the alert, but suddenly 
and hopelessly becalmed in mid-ocean ; tossing 
on the swell a little while, but presently its 
crew transformed to spectres, its frame dis- 
solved, its cordage rotten, its rare freight of 
bright gold and sweet spices lost forever to 
human view in the unfathomable depth. 

Great is the mystery of living, active 
thought, as in a moment arrested, spell-bound, 
frustrated. 

We consult our comrades, whose wisdom, 
like our own, rises not above earth ; and they 
tell us, knowledge, hope, aspiration, all have 
reached their bound. It is plain, only too 









AXD OF GRACE. 55 

plain, the flame of living thought is extin- 
guished, and Lazarus is dead. 

(c) Consider the mystery of defeated affec- 
tions. This Lazarus stood not in the world a 
solitary unit detached from all others, so that 
in the crash of his being, other fortunes were 
unaffected. All his life long he had been 
throwing out the tendrils of affection around 
others, and all his life long others had been 
enfolding him in their affections. The stroke 
of death which laid him low was as the felling 
of a tree in some tropic forest, involving in its 
fall the rude severance of frail and tender 
things to which it had served as a trellis and 
support. 

Not only is Lazarus dead, but the home 
receives a fatal blow. The mastership is gone, 
the fraternal communings are ended, the smile 
of hospitality has been converted into rigid 
indifference. All the pleasant up-growths of 
long years of sympathizing companionship 
are in a moment uprooted and destroyed. 

What a mystery is here ! Love, as it is the 
high duty, so also is it the prime necessity of 
our being. mystery of mysteries, that love 



$6 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

itself should be the chief minister of pain ! 
The first-born child is laid in our arms, open- 
ing in our hearts a fountain sealed and unsus- 
pected, but only that after the first joy we 
may cry out, Marah, bitterness. We suffer 
our most unselfish affections to go out after 
parent, wife, brother, friend, and we become 
strangely dependent on their responsive smile 
and genial word, but only that we may wake 
up to a sense of utter impoverishment. Alas ! 
we cry, where are all those warm affections 
wherein we basked as in the sunshine? The 
men of the world shake their heads mourn- 
fully in reply. All that goodness, all that kind- 
ness must henceforth be numbered among the 
things that have been, and survive in memory 
alone, or be reproduced only in the fantastic 
dreams of night. For Nature says plainly and 
finally of him whose living affection was most 
necessary to us, Lazarus is dead. 

I am not obtruding unrealities upon you. 
The world is full of materialists. Some are 
learned, some ignorant. Some have learned it 
in books, others have dropped into it through 
inattention and self-indulgence. 



AND OF GRACE. 57 

The world is full of materialists, theoretical 
or practical, who will not think, will not speak 
of life and death, save in the language of the 
mixed multitude among whom they dwell. 

With us of the clergy, the experience is very 
far from unfamiliar. One sends for us, per- 
chance, to bury his child. We sit with him 
beside his hearth when the funeral is over, and 
endeavor to speak some words to him in the 
heavenly language ; some word about the love 
of Jesus for the little children, and the blessed- 
ness of Holy Innocents. But such speech is as 
uninteresting to him as it is unintelligible. 

So beautiful a child, he says ; and now I 
have left him to moulder in the churchyard. 
So bright a boy, so beaming with intelligence, 
so full of promise, — all come to an end. So 
tender-hearted, loving, pitiful, watching at the 
gate for my return when I had gone away, 
and never henceforth to look for me, to em- 
brace me again. I find no comfort, I discern 
no light, I see no reason for the sorrow, I 
have no hope. ' The refrain of all he says is, 
Lazarus is dead : plainly he is dead. The fair 
temple of the body, the bright sparkling of the 



58 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

intelligence, the rich wealth of the affections, 
yes, he and all his endowments are utterly and 
absolutely dead. 

All this is only too true, if we wilfully shut 
our eyes to the invisible but revealed, if we 
admit no words into our vocabulary save the 
earth-born language of the present time. 

With this spectacle of Death, each one of 
us must at times be inevitably confronted, 
under circumstances which will not permit the 
earnest " Wherefore " to be silenced. And, if 
regarded as we have thus far regarded it, the 
mystery of Death stands unrelieved by one 
ray of enlightenment or by one whisper of 
encouragement. 

There standest thou, O King of terrors, hold-, 
ing thy subjects all their life in bondage. Of 
all tyrants, thou art the most direful and relent- 
less ; of all spectres, the most hideous ; of all 
enemies, the most cruel. Keen is thy sting, 
fatal thy dart, adamantine are thy chains. 
The mournfullest group in all the world is 
that of the mourners on the one side, and 
thou, O Death, upon the other, while the 
dead man lies in the midst ; while all heavenly 



AND OF GRACE. 59 

accents are unheard, and thou, without resist- 
ance, utterest thy dirge in the ears of broken- 
hearted mortals : Lazarus is dead ; plainly, 
Lazarus is dead. 

But it is high time that we converse of 
Death in a better and truer tongue. One has 
come to us, as of old to His friends at Beth- 
any, to us tired and heart-sick in view of this 
inscrutable mystery, — come to tell us " The 
Lord God hath given me the tongue of the 
learned, that I should know how to speak a 
word in season to him that is weary." 

For we, thanks be to God, are children of 
the Spirit and of the Church. In our infancy 
we essayed the heavenly language first. We 
have become confused only when we have been 
deafened with the Babel-sounds of earth. 

When the sojourner in a strange land, per- 
plexed amid palaces and ruins, amid things 
beautiful and hideous, catches the voice of a 
guide who can speak to him in his own tongue 
wherein he was born, he turns to him instinct- 
ively as Mary to the Gardener, and saith, Rab- 
boni, my Master ! 

We have been considering what our unaided 



60 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

powers tell us of the mystery of Death ; let us 
now bethink us 

2. WHAT LIGHT DOES JESUS THROW UPON 
THIS MYSTERY? 

And here I will confine myself to His two 
brief sayings about Lazarus, which I have so 
often quoted, reserving the Resurrection theme 
for its own special consideration. "This sick- 
ness is not unto death/' You have often heard 
that there is in the Greek language a delicacy 
and precision which adapted it specially for 
the sacred uses of the New Testament. So 
here : our Lord refrains from using the word 
appropriate to death final and absolute. He 
does not say exactly, " Lazarus is dead/' but 
rather, " Lazarus has died." Is this distinction 
too delicate to be grasped ? I think not. As 
you sit in the darkened room, where one is 
passing away, the kind physician and the sym- 
pathizing priest utter each of them the lan- 
guage appropriate to his function. The phy- 
sician says, " He is dying now," and you bow 
your head in resignation. The priest says, 
" He is not sick unto death," and you raise 









AND OF GRACE. 6 1 

your face in grateful assent. Both words are 
true in their place: but "not unto death" is 
the truer of the two. 

All this means that death is not the destruc- 
tion of the man. It is possible for man to sur- 
vive death. Not merely are the materials out 
of which the man is builded incapable of anni- 
hilation, but the personality itself — that being, 
compounded of body, soul and spirit, whom we 
call by the name of Lazarus — is indestructible. 
Survival is compatible with death. 

Such is the assurance of Him Who made 
man, and Who, vigilant of his creature, suffers 
not a hair of his head to perish, much less any- 
thing that belongs to the integrity of his being. 

And, in the light of this revelation, there are 
not a few signs and tokens all around us, not 
understood before, which fall into strange har- 
mony with the divine utterance. We see men 
shorn of limb after limb, of sense after sense, 
and they still survive. In the medical museum 
one may see the cast of a man's head, which 
is an eminent illustration. While engaged in 
blasting, a tamping-iron, by reason of prema- 
ture explosion, passed into his cheek and clean 



62 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

through his skull, emerging on the top of the 
head. And yet he survived and recovered 
health, nor was reason destroyed by the loss 
of brain substance involved. 

There are not a few blended lights to illu- 
mine the sacred page. Man lives : but life is 
an inscrutable mystery. In view of the shocks 
and losses through which it has passed, we 
have, as it were, a stairway leading us upward 
to the wondrous truth that the God-bestowed 
gift of Life stands unshaken and unimpaired 
even amid the destructive blows of what men 
call Death. 

Think also of that other word, " Our friend 
Lazarus sleepeth," " is fallen asleep" (new ver- 
sion). How like to Death is Sleep, — the poets 
speak of them as twins, — and yet how unlike ! 
In both we lay aside the working dress : but 
sleep needs no shroud. In sleep the body is 
quiet, but the spirit is none the lest alert. It 
is in dreams in the dim night-watches that 
prophets have been lifted up towards heaven ; 
in dreams that we of earth have seen the love- 
liest visions, and heard the divinest music. 

Unlike Death, Sleep has no dishonor, no 






AND OF GRACE. 63 

ugliness ; nothing that affrights, nothing that 
corrupts. Sleep hath in its very nature the 
anticipation of awakening, refreshed and 
strengthened for new exertion. Infants smile, 
they seldom weep in their slumbers. The inno- 
cent, healthful child greets the dawn with a 
smile. 

And here, again, after the spiritual lesson 
has been taught, although not before, there 
come to us numerous confirmations from the 
daily life. It is not merely that men survive 
the sleep and the swoon ; but the mental 
alacrity of the life in sleep, the spiritual eleva- 
tion of its dreams, and the fantastic work of its 
imaginations suggest that it is life, as real as 
our more prosaic waking hours. Sleep is rest. 
Who is not weary sometimes? Not averse to 
his work nor discontented with it, but needing 
to be recuperated for right endeavors. But 
we would not slumber on forever. 

And here comes in the rest of it: "I go that 
I may awake him out of sleep." 

Men love not an awakening, rude and 
abrupt, by the hand or voice of strangers. 
When the fever has left us and we have slum- 



64 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

bered long enough, we would crave a gentle 
pressure on the brow, a kind whisper in the 
ear. 

How pleasant is the union of the thought : 
to die is to sleep in Jesus, with the assurance 
that when I have rested long enough to. pre- 
pare me for the duties of the unending day, 
Jesus Himself will come to awaken me. 

But, after all, there is one word here, which 
may suffice of itself to resolve the enigma. 
Our Friend Lazarus sleepeth. Abraham's most 
honored title was God's Friend. And Lazarus 
was the Friend of Jesus. To all of us baptized 
ones saith this same Jesus, " Henceforth I call 
you not servants but friends. . . . Ye are 
my friends if ye do whatsoever I have com- 
manded you." 

Friendship may demand sacrifices, but it 
can never consent to a friend's destruction. 
Friendship may share its cup of bitterness 
with such as are dearly beloved, and give them 
part in its own baptism of pain ; but it will not 
leave that soul in hell, nor give it over to cor- 
ruption. The Jesus who Himself sorrowed 
and died may in very friendship to us stand 



AND OF GRACE. 65 

aloof when we sicken, and be seemingly absent 
from our death-bed. But, because He is our 
friend, He will share with us the pleasant rest, 
the glorious uprising. 

But dare we claim this title ? In this world 
of indifference and hostility, is our heart for 
Him a Bethany of rest, where we are glad to 
greet Him, and to prefer Him to the place of 
honor? Are we, like the sisters, now meekly 
listening, and now busy with His service? Do 
we mourn His absence, and live in hope of 
His return ? Can our friendship endure the 
utmost test of trust in Him ? For you re- 
member the " Believest thou this?" and the 
answer of faith, while yet the tomb was still 
unclosed. 

Yes. All is summed up in that one word, 
Trust. Are we prepared to intrust to Him, 
youth, age, sickness, life, death, and all things 
pertaining to them ? To trust Jesus is to be 
Jesus' friend. To be Jesus' friend is to be 
assured that there is no slumber so deep but 
that He shall awaken us, no sepulchre so pro- 
found but that His commanding voice can 
reach us and arouse us there. 



IV. 

THE MYSTERY OF RESURREC- 
TION. 



IV. 

THE MYSTERY OF RESURRECTION. 

"/" a?n the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." — S. John, xi. 
25, 26. 

HOW familiar are these words ! How often, 
when we have borne our dead towards the 
altar of God, has the Priest of God come to 
meet us at the portal with this abrupt begin 
ning, this tremendous utterance, this defiant 
challenge to the King of terrors ! 

The Christian soul is reminded of the time 
when Jesus said, " Father, glorify Thy name. 
Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, 
I have both glorified it, and will glorify it 
again." That word of Resurrection, like this 
word of Glory, comes to the Christian ear as 
an articulate voice from the highest heaven. 
Nor is its majesty altogether lost to the less 



JO THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

thoughtful multitude. The people and by- 
standers hear it, as if it thundered ; and others 
in their thought liken it to the voice of an 
angel. 

If it be lawful to discriminate in the utter- 
ances of the Master, this is among the most 
awful of them. " I am the resurrection, and 
the life," says Jesus, as weeping, groaning in 
spirit, He pursues His way to the tomb of 
Lazarus and beyond it, to His own. It is the 
bush burned with fire, while yet the bush is 
not consumed. Surely the place whereon we 
stand is holy ground. 

This is the most magnificent self-assertion 
the world has ever known. Others have either 
modestly or impudently, honestly or falsely, 
proffered themselves as healers and restorers. 
Who ever before 'hath dared to claim, that he 
was the resurrection itself, and the life itself ; 
the embodiment of them, the source whence 
they issue and to which they return, so that 
not merely of him and from him, but in him is 
life, and that life in him is the light of men ? 

" Come unto me," He says, " for I am meek 
and lowly in heart." And yet presently this 



AND OF GRACE. 7 1 

meek and lowly One shall say that which none 
other did ever dare to arrogate, " I am life and 
resurrection." 

How does the mystery of the Incarnation 
meet us at every turn, and furnish us the key 
to unlock all mysteries ! Who but the God- 
man could unite in perfect accord characters 
seemingly so discordant ; now winning love by 
His humility, now inspiring confidence by His 
sublime confidence in His own inherent life. 
It is of interest to note how these words came 
to be spoken ; and how Martha, beautifully 
docile in her hour of trouble, was led upward, 
step by step, to a clearer atmosphere of faith. 

u Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother 
had not died." It was something to believe 
that much ; that Jesus, had He been present, 
could have prevented this disaster. 

But it would seem that Martha herself was 
dissatisfied with the words as they fell from her 
lips. Scarce knowing what she meant or what 
blessing she hoped for, she adds, " But I know, 
that, even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of 
God, God will give it Thee." Late as it was, 
and however opportunity had been lost by 



72 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

delay, even now something might be won by 
prayer. 

But Jesus sees not fit to betake Himself to 
prayer. He answers as one who holds as of 
right, and in His own hand, the keys of death 
and hell. " Thy brother shall rise again." 
Martha accepts the proffered comfort, but 
thrusts it away into the distant future. " I 
know that he shall rise again in the resurrec- 
tion at the last day." 

The story reminds us of the Dying Thief. 
" Lord, remember me," — not here and now : 
that were too much for me to ask, or for Thee 
to give in Thine hour of weakness. " Lord, re- 
member me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom." But what need to wait ? There on the 
cross is heard the same voice of majestic self- 
assertion : " Verily, I say unto thee, TO-DAY 
shalt thou be with me in paradise." 

So here, Martha's faith, however aimed 
aright, fell short of the mark, when it deemed 
life and resurrection to be confined to the 
latter days. Jesus saith unto her, " I am the 
resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : 



AND OF GRACE. 73 

and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die/' It needeth not to defer life and 
resurrection until the judgment day. The 
Lord of the judgment is already here in our 
midst, in the plenitude of life, imparting here, 
and now, the resurrection gift. 

But I must not forget that I have proposed 
to myself a definite theme, viz. : the mystery 
of Resurrection and the light cast upon it in 
this story of the raising of Lazarus. 

Let us then consider 

I. THE MYSTERY WHICH SURROUNDS THE 
DOCTRINE OF RESURRECTION. 

We have been led heretofore to consider the 
dreadful mystery of death. Seemingly it con- 
verts the most magnificent of creatures into a 
handful of ashes ; seemingly it brings the life 
of thought to an abrupt termination ; seem- 
ingly it arrests finally the play of affections 
which elevate-and adorn the race. Then comes 
the Lord of life. He stands in front of the 
charnel-house, and calmly assures us, " Thy 
brother shall rise again." 

Presently this doctrine is amplified and 



74 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

drawn out into various particulars. Death is 
the severance of body and soul. For a season 
the separation continues ; the disembodied 
spirit is with kindred spirits in an abode called 
Paradise, where it rests from labors and is recu- 
perated for the life that is to be. And then 
cometh the great day of Resurrection. Soul 
and body shall be re-united, and the man that 
died shall be a living man again, complete in 
all that is essential to his personal identity. 
In other words, the body, the thought, the 
affections, survive the catastrophe of death. 
The man who died shall rise to a conscious 
life. The man restored, immortal, shall know 
himself to be the same man who once lived a 
lower life, who once sickened and died. 

We are warned not to interpret these sayings 
according to our limited experience. They 
transcend all experience. The risen body is 
identical with the buried body, but not in such 
sense as to mean that physical infirmities 
and deformities are perpetuated. That body 
buried was a natural body, dishonored and 
corrupt ; this body risen is spiritual, power- 
ful, glorious. I know not how many of the 



AND OF GRACE. 75 

old atoms remain : it is enough to be assured 
that nothing which necessarily belongs to our 
personal identity is lost. The heavenly life is 
a prolongation of our earthly life, replete with 
thought and with affection. Those who are 
counted worthy to attain the resurrection of 
the just neither marry nor are given in mar- 
riage, but are as the angels of God. Yet are 
they the same persons who once married and 
were given in marriage. Great is the change, 
or, rather, great is the promotion. Some like- 
ness of it may be seen in the growth of the 
feeble, unknowing infant, into the warrior, the 
poet, the statesman. 

To give reality to our apprehension, the 
resurrection has been exemplified in the person 
of the Lord Jesus. He is portrayed to us, 
lying cold and senseless in the tomb of rock, 
with members rent and a gaping wound in His 
side, embalmed and enshrouded after the man- 
ner of His nation. Presently He is presented 
to us alive after His Passion. It is the Jesus 
that died. In person He is recognizable by 
those who knew Him before. Thought is 
active, affections have survived ; for He teaches, 



76 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

comforts, feeds the hungry, exhibits the same 
partial friendship as before. It is the same 
Jesus, yet how different ! He is, in advance of 
the Ascension, glorified already. The old 
familiarity is no longer permissible. The scars 
which tell of love upon the cross remain, but 
the wounds no longer bleed. It is the man 
Jesus, but glorious and majestic as an angel of 
light. 

Here, then, is the visible pattern of the race 
redeemed. " If we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even them also which sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with Him." When we shall 
reach the close of the approaching Holy-week, 
let us realize that, in following out the history 
of Jesus, we are also reading our own. Let 
each say to his own heart, I am a follower of 
Christ, walking close behind Him. This life 
ended, there shall come to me another life, not 
violently dislocated from the present ; a life in 
which the thoughts and affections of this one 
shall be prolonged, only purified and sublimed ; 
a life in which I shall recognize mine own self, 
only my better self, the golden part of my 
humanity, extricated from all its dross. 



AND OF GRACE. J*] 

This Resurrection doctrine is mysterious, 
not in that it affirms the life of the soul after 
death, but a risen life of the complex man. 
Many have dreamed that the spirit in man 
might prove to be immortal : but none, un- 
taught by the spirit of Christ, ever dreamed 
that the whole man is to survive death ; none, 
self-taught in religion, had ever presumed to 
say, u My flesh also shall rest in hope." 

This revelation touches most nearly the life 
that we are now living. In affirming the 
excellence of the spiritual element, the " reli- 
gion of the heart/' as we call it, we may depre- 
ciate the religion of the body, the excellence of 
temperance in eating and drinking, of purity 
and chastity, of abstinence and the control of 
appetite. Alas ! it is under pretext of a purer 
spirituality that men have learned to be 
negligent of acts of mercy and deeds of benev- 
olence ; that they even forsake the assembling 
of themselves for worship, and discard the 
holy sacraments provided to cleanse and sustain 
the spirits that dwell in clay. 

Oh, it is only when we realize how far- 
reaching is the mercy of God, and that His 



78 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

redemption is of the whole living and breathing 
man, in the integrity and entirety of his being, 
that we learn to present ourselves, body and 
soul, to God, a living sacrifice, holy and accept- 
able. 

And so we are ready to inquire : 

2. WHAT LIGHT IS THROWN UPON THE 
MYSTERY OF RESURRECTION. 

The text we are considering guides us at 
once to the great thought : 

(a) That Life and Resurrection come to us 
through the Person of our Incarnate Lord. 

Consider that this evil of death is too great 
to be merely palliated. It has come down to 
us by inheritance, it is accelerated by contact 
with our kind, it is promoted by the impure air 
we breathe and the darkness in which we grope. 
No partial remedies will avail ; no mere 
reconstruction will suffice. The whole man, 
body, heart, soul, is sick and dying. If relief 
is to come at all, it must be applied at the 
very spring of our being. 

One there was, as full of life as we are filled 
with the seeds of death, Himself the Life and 



AND OF GRACE. 79 

the Son of the Living God. This fulness of 
life He brought down into our lower world, and 
allowed its influence to penetrate its pestilential 
atmosphere. But chiefly He took our diseased, 
dying humanity into union with His own in- 
finite life. In this world-graveyard, there is 
a new creation. The Church grows up and 
reaches above the skies. Its Head is the Lord 
of Life, and we are made His members, grafted 
into Him, knit together in His body, compacted 
together with Him and with each other by 
joints and bands, so that the exuberance of 
the life that is in Him circulates throughout 
the channels of our being, and neutralizes 
death. 

The vital bond is Faith, i.e. trust in Him 
who is the Resurrection and the Life. Hence, 
once incorporated in Him, Death has lost his 
power to destroy us. " He that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die." 

In endeavoring to wrestle with this vast 
thought, that I might tell you some little about 
it, I realize how difficult it is for our narrow. 



SO THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

earthly minds to entertain it. Is it possible 
for us to find an illustration, even a partial one, 
which may assist our conception ? 

Death comes sometimes to us through a 
person. The consumptive mother is warned 
not to sleep with her babe in her embrace, or 
to nurse it at her breast. Or else, you know 
how in modern, no less than in ancient days, 
the leper so certainly communicates his plague 
to any in familiar contact with him, that he is 
inexorably sequestered from the society of his 
fellows. 

We know, too, how moral decay and death 
come to us from a person. The schoolmaster 
tells us that one deceitful, vicious scholar will, 
in spite of all his vigilance and teachings, poison 
the young minds around him. 

One bold, bad man in a community will 
vitiate its moral tone. 

Now, I know not that we can say of any 
person, in the physical sense, that health 
emanates from him, as does disease from a 
leper. 

But, in the moral sense, some people are 
healthful to us. A loving little child in the 



AND OF GRACE. 8 1 

house seems to impart somewhat of his inno- 
cence to its atmosphere. When we have lived 
and worked with a man of determined will, of 
noble self-sacrifice, our feebler will seems to be 
toned up, our selfishness abashed. 

Behold, then, the Incarnate Life standing in 
a world of death. Barely to behold, to admire, 
to reverence, is salutary. The presence of this 
Living One has carried salubrity afar, even to 
those who reject Him, who calumniate Him, 
who resist Him. So subtle and all-pervading 
is this breath of Life, that atheism itself 
is mitigated. And now one pushes modestly 
yet humbly through the crowd ; one who, not 
content to admire, would cling to Him as well. 
Himself too holy for a sinful touch, she grasps 
the garment only of Him who is the Resur- 
rection and the Life. 

Never has the contagion of the leper more 
swiftly cast its deadly germ into the veins of 
one who carelessly grasped his hand, than does 
the virtue of life leap as lightning from the 
person of the Living One, responsive to the 
touch of Faith. She felt in herself that disease 
had vanished at the influx of that tide of life. 
6 



82 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

Oh, most blessed of mortals, who hast believed 
that there is Life to be found as well as Death, 
and that the Life so inheres in the person of 
our Lord, that to touch Him is to live. To 
such an one shall it ever be spoken, " Daughter, 
go in peace ; thy sins be forgiven thee." Where 
sin is forgiven, there is no more death. 

Thus does illumination come to us touch- 
ing the resurrection, when, unmindful of its 
methods, we fasten our eyes on Him who 
embodies it in His own person ; who calmly 
says of the human life, as you or I might say 
of a garment changed at pleasure, " I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again. " 

What if objection be made concerning the 
change of the matter of the body, and the dis- 
persion of its elements ? What if we cannot 
explain wherein the identity of a person re- 
sides? What if one asks, How shall the dead 
be raised, and with what body shall they come? 

We answer, ours is a hidden, mysterious life, 
hid in Christ with God. I am in Him, who is 
Life itself and Resurrection itself. If I were 
dying, the touch of His garment should restore 



AND OF GRACE. 83 

me ; if I were dead, a breath of His shall 
revive me. 

The mystery of Resurrection is still further 
cleared, when we remember 

(b) That Resurrection is a thing of the pres- 
ent as well as of the future. 

Thy brother shall rise again ! Yes, I know 
it : in the Resurrection at the last day, but not 
now, not now. Then comes the sublime assur- 
ance of our text, that now is the accepted time, 
to-day is the day of salvation. Life is already 
bestowed. Resurrection is all about us, how- 
beit their utmost triumphs are in reserve. 

For whether is easier to say, " Thy sins are 
forgiven thee," or to say to the palsied one, 
" Arise and walk " ? 

Not only have there been actual resurrec- 
tions of individuals, as of Jairus' daughter, the 
young man at Nain, Lazarus and our Lord 
Himself ; but the world has seen a new life 
infused into society, and souls dead in tres- 
passes and sins have been awakened to newness 
of life. The Resurrection of the Last Day is 
the outcome and culmination of the Life-work- 
ing now in progress. 



84 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

I may not enlarge upon the substantial 
proofs, in history of this fact. Among the vir- 
tues, humility and the forgiveness of injuries 
seem not to have been invented until Christ 
came. Among the vices, the most shameless 
and defiant of them have been banished into 
the dark. Say what you will of the Christian 
body, with all its defects and divisions, every- 
where we see working in it a principle of life 
unknown before ; life that reaches after con- 
formity to a Divine image ; life that seeks to 
redeem the fallen ; life that purifies the home, 
and fights against moral corruption. 

Is Lazarus alone as a witness to the Resur- 
rection power of Christ ? The more marvellous 
instance of that power is the man once dead 
to all goodness, dead, buried, corrupt, with 
the stone of evil habit barring all egress from 
the tomb ; but, by the penetrative call of the 
Master, restored to spiritual life, exemplifying 
in his risen life the spirit of his Lord. 

Nor do we lack confirmation of this truth 
from our personal history. What is it but our 
uncertain clutch upon the garment of the Lord 
of Life, and the virtue, undeserved indeed, that 



AND OF GRACE. 85 

has gone out from Him into our fallen nature, 
that has recovered us when we were sick even 
unto death, that has saved us when we were 
ready to perish ! 

These things lead our faith onwards and up- 
wards to the time when the last enemy shall 
be utterly destroyed, when we shall drink to 
the full of the pure river of water of life, clear 
as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of 
God and of the Lamb. 

The excellence of Lent consists no little in 
this, that its associations are such as to carry 
us more nearly, more directly to the person of 
our Lord. Church services, holy sacraments, 
the blessed word, have all a life in them ; but a 
life imparted, not original. He only is Life 
itself. 

To think about Him, to read about Him, to 
discuss the doctrines He has revealed, to use 
the means He has appointed, are all right 
things. But if we would know Him and the 
power of His Resurrection, we must know and 
approach Him and cling to Him as embodying 
in Himself all Life. Of His fulness must we 
seek to receive, and grace for grace. The Life 



86 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE. 

Eternal is a gift in time as well as in eternity. 
Bold and outspoken is the profession of our 
Faith : " I look for the Resurrection of the 
Dead, and the Life of the world to come." 

I look for them, for they have already 
visited us, embodied in the Person of the 
Christ. When He shall return to earth, He 
will come as of old, in the plenitude of them. 

I look for them in the coming world, because 
I see the antepast of them in the world that 
now is. In mine own time, yes, in mine own 
self, I have beheld a decay that is worse than 
that which men call death. I have seen the 
stone of inveterate custom rolled away. I have 
seen the man dead in sin, stirring in his shroud 
at a Divine summons, and the long-buried one 
presently sitting at his Master's table. 

By these tokens I know and believe assur- 
edly that " the hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son 
of man, and they that hear shall live/' 



V. 

THE MYSTERY OF MAN'S SHARE 
IN GOD'S WORKS OF MERCY. 



V. 



THE MYSTERY OF MAN'S SHARE IN 
GOD'S WORKS OF MERCY. 

"Jesus said. Take ye away the stone." 

"Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." — 
S. John, xi. 39, 44. 

The subject of our present meditation is 
suggested and illustrated by these features of 
the Lazarus-story, viz. : that He Who raised 
the dead, invited and accepted at human 
hands the lesser offices of love, the unsealing 
of the tomb, the loosening of the grave-clothes. 

Surely, as you have recurred again and again 
to the history which has now engaged our 
attention, the sense of its loveliness and of its 
sublimity has grown upon you. Have you 
thought wherein consists the charm ? Is it 
not because in this narrative, characterized by 
a detail not used elsewhere save in the history 
of the Passion only, S. John sets before us a 



90 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

living, breathing figure of One Who is at once 
Human and Divine? Is it not the marvellous 
reconciliation of our own familiar humanity, 
in its truest sympathies and most genuine 
affections, with the ineffable majesty of God's 
heir and equal, which invests this narrative 
with inexpressible sublimity and unequalled 
pathos ? 

Yes, God is here, in the person of His 
Christ, as Awful and as Glorious as when He 
spoke in thunders from the smoking summit 
of Sinai. And a pure humanity is also here, 
uttering human voices and shedding human 
tears. And these are not contrary the one to 
the other. The two natures are blended in the 
One Christ. His Divinity does not mar his 
humanness ; neither is there anything in the 
human acts and w T ords and tears, to diminish 
our reverence for the Godhead that dwelt in 
Him. 

God is so great that He can stoop to con- 
descension. But in the midst of that conde- 
scension, He shows Himself a King, and gives 
to His subjects their several tasks. 

He who could do the greater work, needed 



AND OF GRACE. 9 1 

no help in the mere accessories of His miracles. 
One might say that the effect of the miracle 
would have been enhanced, if, when all stood 
in order around the sepulchre, at a silent 
gesture of the Master, the stone — like the 
iron gate in the Book of Acts — had moved 
aside as of its own accord ; or if presently, 
while men closed their eyes before a flash of 
glory, Lazarus had been seen with the cere- 
ments of the grave mysteriously exchanged 
for the gracious habiliments of the living. 

These are prosaic things, one might say, — 
men uniting their strength to heave a rock ; 
busy fingers undoing knots and bands. But 
they are human incidents in a divine story; 
and our Lord, who was too great to perform 
unnecessary or pretentious miracles, left these 
offices to others. Jesus said, ''Take ye away 
the stone. . . . Loose him, and let him 

go-" 

The mystery of God's call on man to lend 
assistance in the work of the Divine Mercy, 
is often suggested to us. " The silver is mine 
and the gold is mine.'' How rich is God ! 
And yet His treasury stands ever open in our 



92 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

midst, inviting the rich man's tithes, the 
widow's mite, pleading with the little child for 
a share of his slender purse. No small part of 
our religious energies are expended in collect- 
ing material supplies for the maintenance and 
extension of His Kingdom, who has but to 
open His hand and His Church is filled with 
plenteousness. The sense of mystery goes on 
even to querulousness. Why should I be so 
taxed and restrained, always refusing myself 
something, to promote the designs of One 
whose wealth is as illimitable as the universe ? 

Or else, it occurs to us, God is in might 
irresistible, and the hearts of men are in His 
hand. How easy for Him to make each day 
a Pentecost, with rushing mighty wind instead 
of earthly voices, and cloven tongues of fire 
instead of the foolishness of preaching ! How 
easy for Him by a word to make the dry bones 
live ! 

And yet man's labor is a factor in the world's 
regeneration. He must prophesy to the bones, 
and cry out to the four winds ere the breath of 
the Spirit comes. There is a neighborhood or 
a family entombed in indifference, ignorance 



AND OF GRACE. 93 

or even vice. Their throat, says David, is an 
open sepulchre ; their very talk reeks with the 
corruption of the charnel-house in which they 
lie. But it is only when some Christian soul 
puts forth all the energies of sagacity, enter- 
prise and love, rolling away the stone, that 
light and life penetrate into that darkened 
quarter. The life of our contemporaries, 
Charles Lowder and his friends, for instance, 
are signal illustrations. In the slums of Lon- 
don, the home of crime and all abomination, 
where the stranger ventured at the peril of his 
life, they saw room for goodly churches, 
crowded with those same people, only clothed 
and in their right mind. Strange, we say, that 
Jesus should stand outside and wait for those 
few devoted men and women to roll aw r ay the 
stone ! 

There is another department of this mystery 
against which the spirit of the age earnestly 
protests, and which some Christian men 
vehemently deny. It is that man has any 
part in loosening the bands of the dead-re- 
vived. For absolution means precisely and 
exactly loosing, and men do say that there is 



94 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

no such loosing by any human instrumental- 
ity. 

There is no question that none can forgive 
sins but God only ; but none the less is pardon 
ministered to the individual by the instrumen- 
tality of mortal men. This word, " Loose him, 
and let him go," spoken for the extrication of 
Lazarus from the dishonors of the grave, has 
its world-wide counterpart in the original com- 
mission to the Church, " Whosesoever sins ye 
remit, they are remitted unto them." If par- 
don has its being in the Eternal Mind of God, 
the utterance of the pardon is in time. When 
God quickens a dead soul to life, He delivers 
it to His Church, that in stripping it of the 
dismal habiliments which fettered its limbs, 
and casting over it the robe of the living, God's 
merciful deed may be authenticated and pub- 
lished to the world, and the dead man be en- 
franchised and sent forth to dwell in his own 
proper home, and to sit at table with his 
Lord. 

I need not here protest, that it is not the 
loosing of grave-clothes, that can make a dead 
man live ; it is not the uncovering of the face 



AND OF GRACE. 95 

bound with a napkin, that can restore sight 
and speech to a corpse. Yet it is in conso- 
nance with the reverence we owe to Him Who 
alone quickeneth the dead, to hold in high 
honor the absolving ordinances of the Church, 
the power to bind and to loose, conceded to it 
by its Head, to be exercised under His instruc- 
tions. Thus is Baptism the sentence of liberty 
to tread God's courts, and the Holy Commun- 
ion is the release from fetters which threatened 
to bind us anew. And, as for the righteous 
censures of God's representatives and stewards 
over His family, little as we may reck of them, 
lightly as we may speak of being " turned out 
of the Church," they are, when presumptuous 
sins authorize and demand their infliction, 
verily and indeed the acceptance of the Spirit- 
ual Shroud, the remand from the sunshine of 
life, back into the cavern of a spiritual death. 

So, then, Bethany presents to us a picture in 
miniature of the time in which we live. We 
see about us the mourners whose eyes have 
failed in looking for a comforter, the sick whose 
recovery seems hopeless, the dead waiting to 
be revived. In the midst of ignorance and 



96 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

vice, of sorrow and despair, there stands the 
Infinite Life, the Infinite Compassion. 

And that Life and that Compassion sets to 
itself limits and restraints. It demands a 
human agency. It waits for man to do his 
part. And it is only when the servants of God 
are ready and alert, lending all their energies 
to prepare the way of the Lord, that the Light 
floods the chambers of darkness, and the Life 
arouses from the sleep of death. 

It is a reflection that touches the clergy very 
nearly, and brings at times a horrible dread 
upon us. Nor us alone ; for each Christian 
soul may well question with itself : Is there no 
fast-sealed sepulchre to-day whence my weak 
hands might have removed the covering ; is 
there no fettered spirit whose bonds might not 
have yielded, if I had made it my loving care 
to undo them ? 

You will not expect me to explain this mar- 
vel. The mystery of Redemption is as un- 
fathomable as the mystery of the evil which it 
relieves. Thus much is in our power: accept- 
ing the mystery as a fact, we may discern 
bright spots in the cloud that envelops God's 



AND OF GRACE. 97 

pathway, glimpses of wisdom, purpose, good- 
ness, in this divine ordering. And some of 
these are suggested in the incidents of Lazarus' 
revival, to which we now recur. 
Consider, then, 

I. THAT IN THESE COMMANDS OUR LORD 
AFFORDED AN OUTLET TO COMPASSION. 

God be thanked that human nature is not 
altogether selfish. We read that " many of the 
Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort 
them concerning their brother." We read that 
when these " saw Mary, that she rose up hastily 
and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth 
unto the grave to w T eep there." Here are 
evidences of compassionate sympathy. It 
found perhaps little to say, and nothing that 
it could do. They could at least sit down 
beside the lonely ones, and add a tear to the 
many which these dropped upon the grave. 

Our Lord recognizes the worth of this pity, 
and makes room for it in the miracle. It is 
not hard to imagine with what alacritv these 
kind souls responded to the summons, and how 
many willing hands grasped the heavy block, 



98 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

and then with what loving haste they sought 
to put out of sight all that might remind Laz- 
arus and themselves of the appointments of 
the grave. Surely there is a subtle charm in 
the incident, viewed as an evidence of our 
Lord's appreciation of Lazarus' friends and 
neighbors. If in old age one of these were 
telling the story to his children, with what 
pleasure would he add, " When all was ready, 
the Lord looked toward me, and summoned 
me to lend to His Almightiness the strength 
of my human arm." 

Who among us knows not something of the 
pain which attends an impotent compassion, 
and the relief afforded when pity finds at last 
a work that may be done? How beautiful is 
it to see, in some of the extremities of life, 
kinsmen, neighbors, strangers, vieing one with 
another for the privilege of offering some minor 
ministry of kindness. 

It may be that we have fortitude enough to 
endure our individual sorrows. But a truly 
generous soul is keenly affected by the ills 
which afflict the bodies and the souls of other 
men. Suppose there were nothing permitted 



AND OF GRACE. 99 

to us save only to stand and look! That God 
were not open to entreaty ! That we had need 
to accept evil as inevitable ! That we had no 
strength to remove an obstacle in the way of 
mercy, no skill to untie the knots and tangles 
of life ! How cold and sorrowful this world 
would be ! 

Beyond all doubt this life of ours is ordered 
for the culture and discipline of the affections. 
Without sorrow there would be no room for 
pity. God accepts us as His helpers, that in 
helping Him after our poor fashion, we may 
become more merciful, more self-forgetful. 

There is a technical phrase much used in 
things political, and ecclesiastical as well, Non 
possumus, i.e. we can do nothing. The words 
are readily uttered, and afford an easy way to 
shake off painful responsibilities. Let us 
beware how we utter them too hastily. For 
it has often happened that some one has laid 
down at your door a great trouble. Your first 
instinct has been to say, Why at my door 
rather than another's ? What right has any to 
single me out as the depository of his trouble, 
and to invade the quiet of my life with matters 



IOO THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

in which I have no special concern? How 
impossible for me to find the remedy, to solve 
the difficulty, to undo the careless mischief ! 

But presently better thoughts supplant these 
selfish ones. We take the time to pity, and 
pity begets in us a yearning to relieve, and this 
heart-yearning strangely clears the sight and 
discloses possibilities unseen before. How 
often has pity led on to Faith, and Faith 
removed obstacles, in appearance as deeply 
rooted as the everlasting hills ! Without 
attempting, then, to suggest the ultimate solu- 
tion of this mystery, I claim that the Divine 
Mercy accepting human offices and waiting for 
them is for you and for me a wise and merci- 
ful arrangement. It helps us to get outside 
of our narrowness ; it softens our hearts ; it 
purifies our affections. Let none say, God can 
work His will without me. There was once 
so humble a creature as a dumb ass tied at his 
master's door, and there came a message, " The 
Lord hath need of him," and his owner freely 
surrendered him. The Palm-Sunday story 
would be marred without this accessory in the 
progress of the meek and lowly One. 



AND OF GRACE. IOI 

Surely He Who had use for the unknowing 
beast of burden, can find a worthy place in the 
procession of His majestic works for those of 
us, who, however our arms are weak, have 
cultivated the ready mind and the heart of 
pity. 

There is another reflection very near akin to 
this. We observe 

2. GOD SHARES WITH xMAN HIS WORK OF 
MERCY, IN ORDER TO HONOR HUMANITY, 
AND TO TESTIFY HIS APPRECIATION OF 
ITS DIGNITY. 

" What is man, that Thou art mindful of 
him ! " is the theme of many a sacred lyric. 
God has made him only a little lower than the 
angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. 
And then in the fulness of time God has taken 
this humanity of ours into union with Himself, 
and made us partakers of the Divine nature. 
As we look down the long vista of the glory- 
world, we see at the end, man redeemed, 
glorified, enthroned. 

It is no marvel, then, that, while Christ's 
Kingdom is progressing towards its utmost 



102 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

realization, God should testify the honor in 
which He holds His creature, that He should 
share with him the most sacred offices, and 
find a place in the work of redemption for the 
vigor of his intellect, the' wealth of his affec- 
tions and the labor of his hands. 

Thus was Mary honored as mother and nurse 
of the Eternal Son. Thus Apostles shared His 
journeys and His vigils, and distributed to the 
multitude the bread which He blessed and 
brake. And thus is the Church ordained, a 
family with a task for every member, an army 
with a post for every sentinel. 

The word " work " was often on the lips of 
our Lord. " My Father worketh hitherto, and 
I work." " I must work the works of Him that 
sent me while it is day." And at the last, " I 
have finished the work which Thou gavest me 
to do." 

What so honorable, what so salutary, as work 
with God and for God ! What is there, like 
work, to impart reality and stability to our 
religion ! 

Thus, then, while the Lord is in no wise 
dependent on us ; while more than twelve 



AND OF GRACE. 103 

legions of angels stand ever ready to put the 
sickle into His harvest, yet doth He summon 
us from the market : Son — daughter — go work 
to-day in my vineyard. 

The alleviation of human misery, and the 
evangelization of the world, are w r orks to be 
effected by human industry. So large and so 
varied is the field, that there is room therein 
for all human endeavor. The thinker and 
the student remove many an obstacle. The 
teacher, the financier, the traveller, woman with 
her domestic and housewifely gifts, all may 
consecrate their talents to setting forward the 
work of the Infinite Mercy. 

Let this reflection, then, encourage and ani- 
mate us, when we look upon this mystery of 
evil awaiting to be relieved ; of God, as it were, 
standing still until men betake themselves to 
action. 

God is not content that each one of us 
should barely save himself. There is a noble 
aspiration open to us all, — to save some other 
soul from death. In work for God we are to 
find our true ennobling, and to secure the 
utmost reward. 



104 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE 

These considerations lead us to some serious 
reflections well suited to the Lenten time. 

God invites our aid, and is waiting for it. 
How this thought humbles while it dignifies 
us ! The Infinite One asks something of us, 
intrusts to us the success of a work inaugu- 
rated by the surrender of His own Son. 

Is it so that we can really do something for 
God, can please God by our readiness and in- 
dustry? Oh, then, how great is the shame of re- 
luctant, grudging, faint-hearted service ! What 
disgrace, that, when He calls for volunteers, we 
should ever hang back and ask, Why look to 
me rather than another? How serious a mat- 
ter is it to refuse God anything that He asks, 
or to excuse ourselves from any task which He 
assigns ! What need have we to seek after a 
truer measure of self-consecration, the fulness 
of a love which keeps nothing back ! 

And yet more, it is a pitiful reflection that 
the world, groaning and travailing in pain even 
until now, is in some sense dependent upon us 
for its redemption. It adds to our distress in 
view of the imperfections and divisions of the 
Church to know that, by reason of them, her 



AND OF GRACE. 105 

hearing is made dull, her arm is weakened, her 
fingers have lost their nimbleness. 

But, when we come nearer home, how much 
cause have we for self-reproach ! If we were 
united in the endeavor to lead really saintly 
lives, how many, now indifferent, w r ould have 
recognized the beauty of such lives, and been 
tempted to venture in that path ! 

If our homes had been indeed Christian 
homes, fragrant with thoughts and devotions, 
how might our children have grown up other 
than they are ! 

If in society and in business, we had always 
borne ourselves as the disciples of the meek 
and lowly One, always just, always kind, always 
ready to forgive, how excellent might have 
been our influence ! But it is greatly to be 
feared that one or another has lain still in his 
prison, because it never occurred to us that it 
was our business to take measures for his re- 
lease ; or else still wears the grave-clothes of 
evil habit, because we never sought to help 
him to disrobe and to put on the vesture of 
the new man. 

Well may we invoke, in the Litany, for- 



106 THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE. 

giveness for our sins, negligences and igno- 
rances. 

Yes, God has stood ready to revive ; and 
there have lain around us the dead, capable of 
revival. But, in our negligence, we have actu- 
ally obstructed the Lord's work, and delayed 
or defeated the arousing of the slumberer. 

Vain is it to object that the success of God's 
work ought not to be endangered or marred 
by man's negligence. The mystery remains. 
Nay, we see a depth of wisdom and love in 
this unequal partnership between God and His 
creature, encouraging us to believe that when 
we come to know all, we shall exclaim with 
profounder reverence, " O the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
God ! " 

It seems very plain that none of us can rise 
towards heaven without carrying others thith- 
erward. None can fall into the abyss without 
dragging another the self-same way. 

Oh, let us see to it well, that none lingers in 
prison by reason of a door that we might un- 
close ; that none is encumbered with the grave- 
garb, whose fetters our fingers might unloose ! 




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